Contents

Essence of the Deceiver

Once transformed, the powers of the Deceiver allow the Necron Lord to terrify, confuse, and ultimately destroy his foes. The morale of entire armies can be broken with a word from this vile creature. Unlike the Nightbringer, the second C'tan uses words and false images to turn its foes against themselves.

Tactics

The Deceiver's only weapon does little damage, but has powerful special effects that reduce the damage of the units he attacks and even has a chance to drive the target berzerk, turning it on its own for a brief time. Thanks to the Deceiver's teleportation and invulnerability, it can always attack the most powerful unit in the opponent's army unopposed, weakening it and potentially turning it on itself for a brief while.

Deceive, its trademark skill, causes units within the surrounding area of the Deceiver to temporarily turn on their allies. For the remainder of time that effect is in play, you may move and control the deceived units as if they were your own. This includes use of any abilities that the units may have as long as they do not take any resources to activate. This ability really becomes nasty if there are any Heroes attached to the converted squads as you gain access to all of their free skills as well, which can be utterly devastating to the remaining enemy forces if the hero has powerful skills like a Farseer.

Grand Illusion creates a fake Restored Monolith that draws enemy fire. The fake Monolith does no actual damage but still provides the same knockback of a real one, making it great for disrupting enemy troops. The illusion will disappear from the battle field after 60 seconds or when its health reaches 0. There is a bug which will occasionally cause the Illusionary Monolith to be reduced to just 500 health after 60 seconds, making it permanent unless it is destroyed. But perhaps its most terrifying ability is that Necron units, like the Necron Warriors, Immortals and Flayed Ones, can be summoned to the false Monolith just like a real one. This gives a Necron Lord in Soulstorm incredible army control. With his long range teleports the Necron Lord can quickly get into an enemy base, summon the Deceiver, create Grand Illusion and immediately teleport his entire infantry army directly into the enemy base from anywhere on the map and level the base almost before the enemy knew what hit him. Or, if necessary, the same tactic could be used to quickly get your army into a battle if it isn't close to any of your normal buildings. Only a cloaked Eldar base is immune to this tactic, since neither the Deceiver, nor the fake Restored Monolith or any of the infantry that can teleport in have the detection ability, and the fake Monolith can't build Builder Scarabs.

And finally, to top it all off, the Deceiver's Dread aura drains the morale of enemy units within a rather large area, allowing them to be quickly broken and then destroyed by your supporting infantry.

But for brute damage, especially against Relic units, the Nightbringer should be summoned instead.

Abilities

Deceive

Deceive

Hotkey: D

Requires

Nothing

Target Types

Any enemy Infantry and Heavy Infantry

Range

0

Area of effect

10

Cooldown time

90 s

Effects

Units within the area of effect are turned to the Necrons for 20 s. Any commander units attached to an affected squad will also be turned. These units are under full control of the Necrons, but cannot be deleted, and no actions that require requisition can be performed.

Grand Illusion

Grand Illusion

Hotkey: G

Requires

Nothing

Target Types

Terrain

Range

90

Area of effect

None

Cooldown time

180 s

Effects

Creates a temporary false Restored Monolith at the target location to draw enemy fire. It has all the same properties of a regular Monolith, including weapon knockback and teleportation, but its weapons do no damage and it will persist under weapons fire down to 0 HP rather than 2500 HP. If is not destroyed after 60 seconds, it will disappear on its own.

Dread

Dread

Requires

Nothing

Target Types

All enemy units

Range

0

Area of effect

20

Cooldown time

Passive ability

Effects

Enemy units within the area of effect take 5 morale damage every second.